The opportunities for profit are enormous– $20 to $30 billion lunar expedition market

Will require persistence and will experience setbacks — with New Horizons mission to Pluto, began in 1989 and suffered through five mission cancellations before finally getting mission off the ground

Will need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars

Would not be possible without NASA’s forward looking space policy nor NASA’s many discoveries and achievements

Q&A Session

Q. How could you possibly make any money at 7.5 billion with the first flight and then down to $1.5 billion? You would still be in the read at $1.5 billion? There seems to be no financial reality to this plan.

Stern: We’ve been over this very carefully. You only know what our prices are, not what our costs are. You have ignored the entire media stream: advertising, naming rights, etc. Naming rights for the Denver Broncos stadium sold for $120 million. A lot of merchandising. A very important part of the business. This can be a money-making business if we sell enough expeditions. If we sell only 3 or 4 missions, it’s underwater. But, 15 to 25 nations are interested in doing expeditions.

Q: Who are the backers and how much have you raised?

Stern: Will not go into that yet. Boeing doesn’t ask billionaires to back new airplane. They go out and get enough orders they then go to the bank and get financing to start the project. We follow the same approach.

Q: Why would nations that do space for prestige come to Golden Spike?

Stern: We can make it affordable to mid-sized companies — South Korea or South Africa, Malaysia, etc. Most countries don’t build their own airplanes, they go to Boeing or Airbus.

Q. Smaller ventures like Google Lunar X Prize teams have struggled to raise tens of millions for robotic missions. Why would it be easier to raise hundreds of millions for human missions?

Griffin: Apples and oranges.

Stern: I’m part of Moon Express. The robotic missions are very different from human ones.

Q. Which nations and space agencies have you talked to?

Stern: Won’t go into the details.

Q. Where do you intent to launch from?

Stern: Depends upon which launch vehicles we use and where there are launching from at the end of the decade. Not limited to domestic launch vehicles.

Q. Is Falcon Heavy the baseline for two launch mission?

Stern: Used Falcon Heavy as baseline in scientific paper, but doesn’t represent a bias on our part toward toward launch vehicles.

Long pole in the tent is the marketing and sales effort, which will unleash the engineers to put the expedition system in place. Landing vehicle is fairly standard technology by today’s standards.

Q. Have any individuals approached you?

Stern: One individual has approached us about being on a lunar mission. Won’t reveal who.

Q. What would stop another company from doing the same thing?

Griffin: Other companies could do it. The moon is the size of North America. There are 194 nations on Earth.

Q. Are you in competition or cooperation with Space Adventures and other companies?

Griffin: They’re in different businesses. Not in the transportation business.

Q: What is the sales pitch to sovereign nations?

Stern: We can offer an enormous amount and great quality of the science. There’s going to be a long line. Will be some shoving in line to see who would be first. When people see the success of those missions, will be even more countries in line.

The Russian success in sending other nation’s astronauts to Mir is a model here. Was very successful and we think the lunar missions will be similarly successful.

Q: Would you consider selling missions to NASA?

Griffin: “Of course we’d sell anything to NASA that we could possible provide.” NASA’s long-range goals are much further out. “By all means, if NASA wants a ride, we’d be happy to put them on our railroad.”

There is quite a stable of capabilities that exist that have been developed by NASA and private industry in the United States.

Q. To Nancy Conrad: What would Pete have thought of this and what inspired you to get involved?

Nancy Conrad: Pete was very engaged in commercial space, including piloting the Delta Clipper experimental vehicle. If he were sitting here, he would probably be clicking his heels. “I think this is an extraordinary project.” In Apollo, only 12 people went. Now we’re going to open this up for all of humanity.

Q. What about ITAR issues?

Stern: ITAR is very complex and we have retained counsel. ITAR is being dealt with by commercial companies such as Virgin Galactic in flying foreign customers. The Obama Administration and Congress is working to reform ITAR. We think the ITAR issues are workable.

Q. What dealings have you had with NASA?

Stern: N ASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and Administrator Charles Bolden and associate administrators got a briefing about a week and a half ago. FAA’s George Nield also received a pre-brief and they also met with Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Q. Will you try to launch in time for 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in 2019?